House in translation
by Lula2
Summary: House's life through the lens of his favorite movies. Starts with The Graduate, we'll see where it goes from here! Maybe HC, but probably not. I'm not sure what these characters are going to do. They are not mine, after all.
1. The Graduate

**Chapter One: The Graduate**

"I thought you might show," she says, as she ushers me into the tiny living room.

"And yet you forgot to bolt the door." No Chase in sight. Hm.

"I would have if I'd thought it would keep you out. You might as well come in. Try not to be a nuisance while I finish getting ready." She's wearing a short dress. It's very short. I wonder what'll happen when she sits down. I hope I'm in a strategic position to find out.

"Aren't you going to offer me a drink?" I hobble over to her armchair and plop down with a certain insouciance that most would find grating but she's always seemed to enjoy.

"People who invite themselves over to other people's houses shouldn't complain about etiquette or lack thereof. There's beer in the fridge if you want one. Otherwise, wait until I'm ready."

She disappears through a door. I consider getting myself that beer, but the armchair is particularly soft and I can see it will take considerable effort to get up, so I pop a Vicodin instead. I would turn on the TV as well, but I can hear her talking to Chase through the door. It's muffled, but she is probably saying something along the lines of it's House, and he's probably saying something like I can't believe that asshole, you didn't invite him, did you and Cameron is saying something like, well, maybe he wants to come to dinner with all of us and Chase is going to go along with it because she'll want me to come and he can't say no to her. He's still pretending to be the perfect boyfriend. He's not sure of her yet.

When she comes out again she has added more stuff to herself. There's stuff on her wrist and her neck and her ears and her hair, and there's a lot of stuff on her face that wasn't there before. She looks beautiful, but doesn't look like Cameron. "I'm about to open a bottle of red wine. Want a glass?"

"I hate wine. I'll take a Scotch," I say, in what I am absolutely sure is English. She seems to have a problem with the language, since she just gives me a beer. Once beside me she reaches for a CD, conveniently located on the bottom shelf. I say conveniently, since her position affords me a perfectly captivating view of her anatomy. The dress helps in this endeavor by gracefully showcasing vast expanses of creamy skin. She pops the CD into the stereo and plays it softly before heading for the kitchen again. She sits on a stool by her kitchen counter and looks at me, expectantly. Her dress is indeed the shortest dress I have ever seen.

"For god's sake, Doctor Cameron. Here we are. You got me into your house. You give me a drink. You... put on music. Now you start opening up your personal life to me and tell me your husband won't be home for hours."

"My husband?"

"Doctor Cameron, you're trying to seduce me."

As Cameron finally catches the reference, she laughs.

"Aren't you?"

"Gregory, I am not trying to seduce you." A smile that says she'll play along. Then an almost imperceptible change. She reaches for her earring, gently stroking it between her forefinger and thumb. A perfectly innocent moment turning dangerously erotic.

She waits until my eyes meet hers, and then, quite suggestively, in a voice that isn't hers, she speaks. "Would you like me to seduce you?"

"What?"

"Is that what you're trying to tell me?" There's not a trace of innocence in the way her hand is resting on her thigh, her chin at an angle that throws light on her neck.

I have lost control of this situation. No, not lost it. She has hijacked control. She seems a little too poised to be the Cameron I've always known. She is now the unexpected, the unknown. I do not know what's next.

"Why don't we skip to the part where you say I am the most attractive of your doctor friends?"

"Sure. Does that happen before or after you say you are available to me any time?"

"I don't remember. But she does take off her dress, doesn't she?"

"She asks him to unzip her. And he does, which is the material point."

"Maybe, or maybe the material point is the way she turns and looks at him. As if telling him that it might not happen tonight, but it will happen _some _night. And she can wait."

"She doesn't have to wait long."

"Why did we start changing the pronouns?"

And there it is, a brief look of sadness before she dispels it with a smile. "Another drink?"

When Chase comes out, he asks what we have been talking about. "The Graduate," answers Cameron. "How Cameron is trying to seduce me," I say. "Well, here's to you, Mrs. Robinson." I swallow the last of my beer and get up. It is very difficult, and I hate the fact that they are both standing together, a young couple looking impossibly blond, young and glamorous, watching me struggle ungainly to my feet. His arm is around her waist as he watches me and my hand is on my cane as I head for the door.

"You could join us for dinner. Wilson and Cuddy are coming, you know." I can hear how sorry she feels for my lonely, crippled self, hobbling off to an empty house. She'll spend the rest of the night feeling guilty and worrying about me. I almost want to spare her the guilt and accept the invitation, but I don't because right now, I hate her. I hate her short dress and her strange, made-up face and her pity for an old man she doesn't love anymore.

"No thanks. I'm afraid that the level of repartee among such company would severely compromise my appetite. Besides, I still have people to harass before I sleep." The door closes behind me, as I look out across the dark suburban street. I am adrift in the suburbs. An image of Benjamin Braddock pounding on the church window and screaming for Elaine before he loses her irrevocably imprints itself in my mind. I drift towards my bike without looking back. I know she is not looking out the window for me.


	2. The Godfather

**Chapter Two: The Godfather**

I knew it was simply a matter of time before he showed up in my office. Rumor had it (and by rumor, I mean Wilson) that Chase had found something interesting in his last surgery, something interesting enough that he had had to close up the patient without touching her. This happens to the best of surgeons, and most of them just give the bad news to the family and move on to the next patient. But Chase is new at this post, and he's bound to want to make a splash, get a little recognition, maybe even write a paper for a medical journal. I'm sure he's gone through all the surgeons in this hospital by this point. If he's here, it's because he's stuck, and there is nowhere else for him to go.

I had been carefully honing my Game Boy skills in my darkened office, blinds semi-drawn against the early morning sunlight, when he walked in and sat down in a chair. He started with "I love surgery", which I thought was a bizarre way to start a conversation. In the gloom, his words remind me of the opening scene of the Godfather. Except he's not a balding, middle-aged man. If he looked anything like Bonasera he wouldn't be banging a hot piece of ass like Cameron. Like Bonasera, though, he has an excruciating accent. He goes on and on about the operation, and the irregular, interconnected cysts he found in his patient's pancreas. He's been speaking now for about five minutes. I feel myself getting angry. When I get angry… well, I have been known to be petty.

"We've known each other many years, but this is the first time you came to me for counsel, for help. I can't remember the last time that you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child." I try not to smirk as I notice his confusion. Even his hair looks confused. Honestly, a thirty-year old American man who doesn't recognize the Godfather should be castrated and his testicles thrown to the dogs. "But let's be frank here: you never wanted my friendship. And uh, you were afraid to be in my debt."

Chase is completely befuddled. "What debt?"

"I understand. You found paradise in surgery, had a good trade, made a good living. Cuddy protected you; and there were courts of law. And you didn't need a friend of me. But uh, now you come to me and you say -- "Doctor House give me a consult." -- But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, and you uh...ask me to take a case, for money."

"Who said anything about money?"

I stand, and turn my back on the wombat, relishing his dimness and really starting to warm up. "What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? Had you come to me in friendship, then this scum that ruined your patient would be diagnosed this very day. And that by chance if an honest man such as yourself should make enemies, then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you."

"Have you been doing drugs? Apart from the Vicodin?"

He's really not getting this. Deviating from Coppola's script I reach for my coffee mug and point at it, trying not to lose the intensity I have been building up, but inevitably rolling my eyes at his sheer inadequacy. Is this a man or a marsupial?

"Do you want more coffee? Oh. House, you know you are always welcome at our apartment. For coffee or whatever. We never invited you because, you know. You never would have accepted. And after the other night, since you just kinda came uninvited, we thought, you know, whatever. But yeah."

This is good enough. After all, I don't really want him kissing my hand and calling me Godfather. I do not know where that mouth has been. Except that it has definitely been on, around and in Cameron. Definitely the night of the very short dress. There were a lot of places to put your lips to... I don't know what's more disturbing: the image of Chase kissing Cameron or the image of me, soiling her with my mouth.

Chase is staring at me with his Tiger Beat cover boy expression, so I put my arm around him, more threateningly than otherwise, and do my best Brando impression. "Good. Some day, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But uh, until that day -- accept this consult as a gift on my daughter's wedding day."

I take his patient's file and toss it on top of my desk. Looks like I have another case. And carte blanche to show up at his apartment any time. He was right, I do not need or heed invitations. I'm just wondering how he's going to explain my soon-to-be-constant presence to Cameron.

Later that night…

"Chase, he was quoting the Godfather, for God's sake. You didn't have to invite him over! God knows what new developments in sheer evil we're in for now!"

"Like he's always waited for my permission before doing whatever the hell he wants."

"It's not about permission. He's just- you know. Now he has the excuse, there's going to be absolutely no stopping him."

"I think you are blowing all of this way out of proportion."

"We'll have to wait and see, but I predict that I will be using the sentence _I told you so_ on a variety of occasions."


End file.
